


Day 2: Sleep

by illusemywords



Series: A Wilde Week 2020 [2]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: A Wilde Week 2020 (Rusty Quill Gaming), Anxiety, Insomnia, M/M, Oscar do some self care challenge, Pre-Relationship, Set during the Japan Arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:55:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27601742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illusemywords/pseuds/illusemywords
Summary: Oscar doesn’t much like remembering things from his past.
Relationships: Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Series: A Wilde Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016710
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22
Collections: A Wilde Week 2020





	Day 2: Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Day 2 - “Memory… is the diary that we all carry about with us.”
> 
>  **Remembering** | Forgetting | Recording
> 
> Me bringing my anxiety coping mechanisms into my writing? It’s more likely than you think.
> 
> The POV is kinda messed up and this could definitely use some more work but /shrug

Oscar doesn’t much like remembering things from his past. There’s too much trauma, and too many bad decisions he doesn’t want to linger on. He’s found that the easiest way to avoid remembering is to stay busy. This isn’t usually a problem during the day. There’s always work to be done, and even if there seemingly isn’t, there’s always work to be found.

No, the problems usually arise when night falls, and people start going to bed. The combination of fewer distractions and silence is a bad one. This is when the intrusive memories are at their loudest.

His solution is to throw himself even more intensely into his work than he does during the day. If this results in him falling asleep at his desk in the early hours of the morning, waking up with a crick in his neck more often than not, well, that’s still better than lying awake for hours on end as his mind plays him whatever selection of horrible traumatic memories and mistakes it has decided to cook up for him.

And maybe he hasn’t felt fully rested in months, but the world is ending, so he can’t really find it in himself to care about something as inconsequential as missing out on a bit of sleep. There are more important matters to attend to, and if him working into the night has the added benefit of distracting himself from things he would rather not think about, then that’s just a bonus. At least that’s what he tells himself.

He doesn’t really think anyone else has noticed, but of course he’s wrong about that.

“Wilde, you need to sleep,” Zolf says, late one night.

Oscar looks up from the paperwork he’s been meticulously working through for the past few hours. Zolf is standing in front of his desk. He didn’t hear him come in.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Oscar says, looking back down at his papers. “I sleep every night.”

“Not in your bed, you don’t,” Zolf says, and Oscar looks up again to see a slight blush on Zolf’s face.

“Mr. Smith,” he begins, putting his pen down on his desk. “Have you been going in my room at night?”

The blush spreads, but Zolf has a determined look on his face. “Only to confirm that you haven’t been. Like I said, you need to sleep.”

“I am sleeping,” he says. “I just find it easier to sleep in here.”

Zolf doesn’t look convinced. He looks around the room, taking in the sparse furniture. There really isn’t much more than his desk and a few spare chairs, and nothing that would make for a suitable bed. “You’ve been sleeping at your desk?” He looks decidedly unimpressed.

Oscar shrugs. “I get more work done like this.”

Zolf’s eyes narrow dangerously. “I’m calling bullshit,” he says. “You’d get even more work done if you were actually well-rested, and I think you know that.”

“I’ll take that under advisement, Mr. Smith, but really, I’m fine.” Oscar says, picking up his pen again. “Now, was there anything else you wanted? I’d quite like to get back to work, if you don’t mind.” He returns to combing through the paperwork on his desk.

He meant it as a dismissal, but Zolf doesn’t leave. Oscar sighs deeply, putting his pen down once again. “Yes?” he asks expectantly, looking up at Zolf again.

“What are you afraid of, Wilde?” Zolf asks, tilting his head curiously to one side.

It’s not the question he expects. “What?” he responds, confused.

“The way I see it,” Zolf says. “Clearly there’s something keeping you from going to sleep. Everyone here wants to help save the world just as much as you, but you’re the only one literally working yourself to sleep at night. So, what are you afraid of? What’s keeping you from going to sleep.”

The silence stretches between them for a long time. Oscar is the one who finally breaks it.

“It’s not that simple,” he says, looking down at his desk. “It’s not that I’m afraid of anything, exactly. It’s more… When I stop working, I start doubting myself, and I start remembering all the mistakes I’ve made, and all the people I’ve disappointed, all the people I’ve lost. Sleep becomes very difficult when I allow those thoughts entry.”

He looks up at Zolf again when he finishes speaking and finds him just staring back at him.

“Get up,” Zolf says, finally.

“What?” Oscar asks, frowning.

“It’s well past midnight. You say you can’t fall asleep without a distraction? Well, let me provide one.”

Oscar raises his eyebrows slightly. “Mr. Smith, are you propositioning me?”

“Not that kind of distraction,” Zolf sputters, blushing again. “I figured I could, y’know, talk to you. Until you fall asleep.”

“You’re going to tell me a bedtime story?”

Zolf shrugs. “I have a lot of stories to tell, Oscar. I don’t mind sharing them if means you manage to fall asleep in an actual bed for once. And, if it helps, look at it this way. You’re more helpful to me – and to all of us – if you’re not half asleep all the time.”

“I –” Oscar begins, cutting himself off. “Yeah, okay,” he continues. “Let’s try it.”

Oscar doesn’t honestly expect it to work, and he feels more than a little silly changing into his sleepwear and getting into bed while Zolf drags a chair into the small bedroom.

Zolf pushes the chair over to the side of the bed, and once Oscar has laid down under the covers, he starts talking. He tells him a story about his time at sea, when they almost ran out of food and the captain had sent a team to scavenge for food at a nearby abandoned island. He tells him how one of his crewmates swears he was nearly killed by the local wildlife when he tried to climb a coconut palm and one dropped on his head.

It’s not his most exciting story, but it apparently does the trick, because about halfway through Wilde’s eyes are closed, and his breathing has fully evened out by the time Zolf is done.

He stays there for a few minutes, just to make sure Wilde is really asleep. When he’s satisfied that he’s not going up to wake up again, Zolf gets up, careful not to let the chair scrape against the floorboards. When he leaves the room, just before he slides the door close, he says, very quietly, “Goodnight, Oscar.”


End file.
